


I'mma Take Your Girl Out

by hulklinging



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M, One Night Stands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-09 00:31:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7779868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hulklinging/pseuds/hulklinging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eponine meets a beautiful girl in a bar.</p><p>They may or may not have a mutual friend.</p><p>Cosette's a pretty common name, right? She didn't just sleep with her best friend's ex, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'mma Take Your Girl Out

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "I really like you but you’re my best friend’s ex." I listened to a lot of Hayley Kiyoko while writing this, not gonna lie. The title is from her song Girls Like Girls.

What Eponine tells herself is _there are plenty of people named Cosette._

She asks the gorgeous blonde for her name and what she's drinking, and she laughs she's got nothing weighing her down, leans over to whisper _Cosette, bellinis_ in Eponine's ear. And it shows how many drinks Eponine has had, that the alarm bells don't sound right then and there. Instead, she gets caught up in thinking about how she is such a sucker for beautiful people she has to look up at.

She orders a bellini for Cosette, a g & t for herself. Cosette laughs easily, or else there's something about this bar that makes Eponine suddenly funny. After their first drink at the bar, Eponine offers her another, but Cosette insists on pulling her out onto the dance floor first.

Eponine doesn't go to bars with dance floors. She's only here tonight because her best friend and his new boyfriend were supposed to meet her here. That was hours ago. She had been angry, but with Cosette's long fingers on her hips, she thinks she might be having a change of heart. She's glad they're not here, weighing on the back of her mind as they fill up the space with their lovey-dovey nonsense. She loves Marius, she does. Not like she used to, like a kicked puppy being fed for the first time. She's left that behind her, and in its place is solid friendship that does mean the world to her. It's just that when Marius falls in love, it's an all consuming thing. And Courfeyrac is not known for doing anything by halves. Together, they're overwhelmingly in love.

Eponine is not looking for love. She's not looking for anything, doesn't need anything to complete her because she's whole all on her own.

Still, she wouldn't mind being a little extra, just for a night.

This isn't something she usually does, she thinks or maybe says to Cosette, as Cosette flags down a cab. She pulls Eponine close again and brushes her lips against the pulse in her neck, and any other words get caught in her throat.

"Stop thinking," Cosette tells her, and it's all Eponine can do to keep her hands to herself in the cab. Cosette doesn't afford her the courtesy, grabbing her hand and trailing her fingers up and down the other girl's arm, making Eponine shiver and bite at her lip. She keeps her eyes straight ahead, knowing that her dark skin is stained with blush now. She wants to see what their skin looks like laid out next to each other, how stark the contrast will be. She wants to touch, wants to kiss her way down her body and make her laugh again.

Her apartment is nice, probably too nice for the likes of Eponine, but she doesn't get to see much of it, because Cosette is pulling her towards her bedroom.

"I still technically live with my ex," she admits. "But he's dating someone new, he's never actually home."

At this point, Eponine doesn't care who's here. The door barely closed, they fall into each other, and any nagging familiarity disappears under Cosette's kisses.

When she wakes up in a strange room, it takes her a moment to remember where she is. There's no one in bed with her, but there's sounds leaking in from somewhere, quiet upbeat music and someone singing softly along to it. She closes her eyes and basks in the memories as they come back, because it was a good night.

That is, until she remembers the girl's name.

Cosette can't be that uncommon a name, right? Surely she spent the night with an unknown Cosette. Definitely not the infamous Cosette that Marius had cried about, that night they'd met. It had been a mutual thing, the breakup, something had stopped working, but that didn't mean he wasn't absolutely shattered. And living with her wasn't helping anything. She'd looked at the crying boy at the bar (no dance floor) and taken him home, made him boxed macaroni on her shitty stove, listened as he waxed poetic about the angel he'd ruined everything with. That was the thing about Marius, see. Even when at his most pathetic there was something about him that was so endearing, that made Eponine want to take care of him. She fell for him somewhere between finding him on a lonely bar stool and taking him out to meet her friends after a week of him staying on her couch. It made Courfeyrac's eyes following the boy around all night (and Marius leaning down to ask all about Courfeyrac in a hushed tone) that much more painful.

All ancient history of a year ago now, Marius off her couch and spending most of his time at Courfeyrac's apartment now. They still talk every day, though. She'll probably get a call from him any minute, actually, seeing as they were supposed to hang out last night. How does she answer that call? _Hey were you being literal when you said your ex-girlfriend looks like an angel? Because guess who I went home with last night?_

She collects her clothing and discovers that she's saved from that conversation any time soon, because her phone is dead. She should probably find a way to charge it, because otherwise her overdramatic friends might think something happened to her. She sighs, and resigns herself to having to leave the room and face the music.

Cosette is making breakfast, dancing around the small kitchen like she's not feeling the alcohol from last night at all. Is that the magic of bellinis? More research might be needed. Eponine just watches her for a moment, until she realizes she has a dorky little smile on her face, and quickly clears her throat.

"Hey."

Cosette turns to look at her, and the eggs in the pan smell so good. Eponine doesn't know how to ask about the ex she briefly mentioned, _I think your ex is my best friend?_ So she doesn't.

"Where are the plates? I can set the table?"

There's a cute little table for two in the corner by the sliding glass doors that must lead out to a balcony, and Cosette looks like someone who has her life together enough to eat most of her meals there, instead of sitting on one of the kitchen counters or flopped over on a threadbare armchair.

Breakfast is amazing. Eponine usually doesn't stick around after one night stands, but Cosette is as engaging sober as she was drunk, and it isn't until Eponine looks at the clock and realizes that _Shit she's supposed to be at work in less than an hour, people are really gonna think that she's dead_ that she says her goodbyes.

"Can I... do you want my number?" Cosette seems suddenly shy, which is absolutely adorable, because she hasn't seen any hint of shyness from the girl this whole time. "I had a lot of fun."

Eponine has never given her number to a one night stand, either.

"My phone's dead," she admits. "Here's my number."

She doesn't need to worry about whether or not she just broke one of the major rules of best friendhood, because Cosette is not gonna text her, no way. She doesn't really fit in to this cute little apartment, with this stunning girl. She probably just wanted to feel a little dangerous for a night. Eponine's gotten that before. The girl next door's interest in the bad girl has served her well, in the past, and this is no exception. She watches Cosette type her number into her phone, and thinks that's that.

When she finally charges her phone that night, amongst the wave of apologies and concern from her friends _Sorry it took us a while to get here are you still here?? ponine please text my bf back he thinks ur dead I hope you're not mad at us!!! if u need a ride home from wherever u ended up text me xoxo_ is a little text from an unknown number.

_I really enjoyed meeting you, Eponine. Do you maybe want to get coffee sometime? Or we could go dancing again. Let me know! - Cosette_

She signed her text. Eponine shouldn't find that so cute. That's just silly.

She doesn't know what to say. Instead of replying, she texts Marius. She lets him know that she's not dead, and she had fun without them, don't worry, and also asks him the address of his old apartment.

This gets her a lot of question marks, but it also confirms what Eponine feared. Cosette is definitely Marius's Cosette, which probably makes her a terrible person.

Well, maybe not yet. They were drunk. But if she sees the girl again, she has no excuse.

She puts off texting Cosette back, and then work is busy and suddenly it's been a week and now it's been too long to text back, probably. She feels disappointed, which is silly because it is entirely her fault. All of it.

Eponine decides she's just not gonna think about it. Which of course means that her eyes catch on every tall blonde that walks into the cafe she works at. When someone who looks exactly like Cosette walks in, almost two weeks after them meeting, Eponine can't help but let out a frustrated sigh, because this is just silly now.

Until the girl approaches the counter and shit, it actually is Cosette. She pastes her customer service smile on a second too late, and Cosette's eyes light up with recognition.

"Eponine!" She looks genuinely excited, which is enough to make Eponine blush, which in turn makes Cosette's own cheeks go red. For a few seconds, they just stare at each other, and thank goodness Musichetta is out on her break and the cafe is mostly empty, because otherwise she would never hear the end of this.

"I... didn't know you worked here. How are you?"

 _Good, how are you_ is the polite response. Eponine does mean to say that, she does, but she opens her mouth and something absolutely horrifying falls out instead.

"I really like you but you’re my best friend’s ex."

Silence. Then Cosette starts to laugh.

"Wait," she gets out. "Are you Marius's Eponine?"

The wording should bother her, because she isn't anyone's, especially not Marius Pontmercy's, but she knows what Cosette means. She nods.

"I didn't know who you were until the morning," she admits. "Otherwise, I wouldn't have..."

"Slept with your best friend's ex-girlfriend, in his old apartment?"

Eponine is glad that Cosette is finding this so funny, because someone has to. Hearing it out loud just makes her feel worse. "Yes."

"Well, I'm glad you did." Cosette's hand reaches over the counter to brush at Eponine's, and she can't help but shiver. "And I understand if you're not interested in anything more. But if what's holding you back is Marius and his feelings, I think you're looking at this the wrong way."

"What do you mean?"

"You're his best friend. He adores you. And we're still really close, too. You should have seen his face when he told me about Courfeyrac. He felt so bad about finding someone new so quickly, even though I was nothing but happy for him." Cosette's fingers curl around Eponine's, and she meets Eponine's eyes and holds them. Like this, it feels like they're the only people left in the world. Eponine had chalked up a lot of the praise Marius had given Cosette as Marius being... well, Marius. She might have to rethink that judgement. Cosette's eyes do look capable of stopping time. "If you think Marius is going to be anything but elated that two of his favourite people in the world are dating, you don't know him as well as you think."

Cosette is absolutely right, of course. Eponine doesn't know why she didn't think of that earlier. She grins, and shifts her hand so that they're holding hands properly, now.

"Wait, did you just say dating?"

"Only if you want to, of course!" There's that bit of shyness again. "Oh no, was that me being too eager?"

Eponine isn't great with words, so the best response she can think of is to lean over the counter and press her lips to Cosette's. The girl gasps, and then grins into the kiss, and Musichetta can't even get mad at Eponine, because she has put up with her boss's two boyfriends being ridiculous for hours on end, on multiple occasions.Surely she can forgive Eponine this one kiss with the girl she's dating(?!).

Cosette actually waits around for her shift to be over, because she is adorable, and when Eponine greets her afterwards, she immediately reaches out to grab Eponine's hand.

"What do you want to do?"

Cosette grins, and swings their hands as they walk, and it is precious. Eponine must be going soft.

"I was thinking we should probably tell Marius sooner rather than later? And in person is better..."

"You just want to see his face when you tell him," Eponine guesses, and Cosette grins.

"Guilty."

Maybe this isn't going soft. Maybe this is just her getting braver.

"Afterwards, you should come over to mine. I could make you dinner? Since you made me breakfast..."

"That sounds really nice."

And it is.


End file.
